The Hunter's Unknown Bounty
by MilitiaMonarch
Summary: A lone hunter, coming back from a lucky start, joins Cayde's Vanguard Scouts. But on a normal patrol, against his wishes, is paired with a still slightly green warlock who shows him there's more to the world than the Light and Darkness.
1. The Awakening

This is my first attempt at a story, comp not being my favorite in school, so any tips or reviews are welcome.

Ch. 1: The Awakening

There's a bright flash of light right before the feeling the crisp fall air on Locus' face as he tried to slow his breathing. 'What's happening? Why is there so much destruction around? Better question, why am I surrounded by skeletons?' He asked himself all of these while getting up slowly feeling the aches in every one of his joints and a pounding in his head from the questions. Locus looked around what he once called home, puzzled before being startled by a floating object in his face, and falling back down.

"Eyes up guardian."

"Woah! What... What are you?" The object stayed in place for a second before floating down to eye level.

"I'm a ghost. Your ghost to be specific..."

'A ghost? What's happening?' he started to wonder in his head before snapping back to the present.

"We should start moving guardian. The Fallen will be here any minute and you don't have a weapon." His ghost flew towards him before disappearing. "I'll be here in your scarf so don't worry." Locus mentally acknowledged that and how the ghost had a voice that sounds like a girl he knew.

Standing up and looking out to ships flying, he started to walk in the direction of an old air base.

"So Ghost. What do you mean by calling me a guardian?"

"Guardians are the few chosen by the Traveler and are warriors gifted with the light to protect what's left of humanity."

"The Traveler, right. And you are able to resurrect me because of this light?"

"Simply put, yes. I was born from in the Travelers last breath to find you. All the guardians come from those who died in the Collapse. The Vanguard and the Speaker can better explain it."

"Alright," Locus began as he climbed through a broken fence moving to the base armory, "where are these vanguard?"

"Russia. Specifically the Tower in the Last City under the Traveler." She remarked, reappearing to look at a container.

He immediately stopped in his tracks and looked at his ghost.

"Russia. And how the hell are we getting there from South Dakota? Unless we can teleport."

"We'll have to find a jumpship. This base was used by the airforce right? So they should have some in the hangers."

Locus sighed shaking his head as they continue the trek in the base.

"The Fallen, what are they?"

"They're space pirates. But their race is called the Eliksni. And they're just scavengers."

"Sound like we don't know much on them."

"About as much as you know about what's happened in the last few centuries."

He smiled at the remark before kicking a door down looking at the options of firearms.

"You should find a rifle, sidearm, and a sniper. Those should suit the area and your skills." His ghost flies over to a pile of rifles scanning them. "These should work. The Khvostov was always a reliable choice."

Picking up the rifle, Locus checked the mag and slung it over his shoulder.

"If there's one things you can count on the Russians doing, it's making a damn good rifle."

"We should get to the hangers. The Fallen are closing in on us."

Grabbing the other recommended weapons, he peaked out the door before make a dash across open ground moving building to building.

Finally arriving in the hanger, Locus looked around recognizing an old Arcadia in decent condition.

"Ghost, should that work to get us to the City?"

"Yeah it'll work. But why do guardians have a knack for finding Arcadias?" going over to the ship she scans it and the engine starts to spin up.

"Was that bit of sass? Didn't know a light bulb was capable of that. Kinda reminds me of a friend I had" Locus jokes while kneeling and watching the door and windows.

"Ghosts aren't just plain computers, we can have personality. But if you want sass, you should have seen Osiris' ghost Sagira. No care with her... Contact. Lots of them. Coming in from the north. There's an Archon."

Locus readies his rifle taking aim at the wall, hearing the orders of captains followed by dregs shuffling around. "You better get the ship in the air soon Aura. Before I die again. "

"I'm trying to as fast as I can, but this tech takes a bit of convincing... Wait Aura? Did you just name me yourself?"

Locus chuckled a bit while switching between dregs coming through the door and windows.

"Yeah I did. Don't ask why I went for that. Just fix the ship before something happens... Oh shit." Locus ducks to the side as a shock grenade flies past his head. "Yeah let's hurry this up."

The firefight keeps up for another couple minutes with Locus down to his sidearm and the captains now joined in the fight.

"Aura! Now would be a good time for us to leave!"

"I'm working. This thing has more loose circuits than Cayde."

Locus turns to the ship looking at the left engine for a second before he kicks it causing the engine to sputter back on.

"There. Fixed it. Now let's go," Locus freezes as he feels something grab him and looks down to see a large hand, "Oh hell. This'll hurt."

The Archon threw Locus across the room into the wall with enough force to crack it. Groaning as he got up, Locus reached to his side only to realize his sidearm was laying by the ship, behind the 15 foot Archon. Taking notice the Fallen barked orders to a captain who walked to Locus, putting one of its swords in the ground.

"Alien space scavengers with honor," he stands grabbing the blade and looks the archon in the eye, "I guess I have no choice but to accept."

The archon starred back before speaking in it's broad voice, "Gue drass drageh oh Bo Thret." (Roughly 'Cower before the Kell of Kells of House Freedom' )

Locus shook his head and sighed, "Let's just get this over with." He charges at the archon and locks blades with it struggling to stay standing.

As the two swords clash together, with sparks flying from them, Locus pulled a grenade from his belt and smiled as his ship starts to fly. "So archon, you ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?" He chuckles as it goes off and his vision goes white.


	2. Introductions

This chapter is going to be shorter mainly due to the lack of things I can think of for this idea, and I'm writing at 12 in the morning.

* * *

Chapter 2: Introductions

Hours later Locus started to wake back up, slightly remembering his dumb plan to win the fight, and not recognizing where he is or the voices he hears.

"I don't care how green this guardian is, he shows the strength to even rival Ikora in the Crucible."

"Shax now is not the time to compliment his…. 'skills', his choice was risky at best. Even Andal would question it."

"Quit your petty squabbling, we all know that Zavala will lecture him as soon as he awakes. As he does with all new guardians." The third voice sounded older, and a lot calmer than the others, and they all turned to Locus, groaning as he sat up.

The first to speak was the second voice, "Take your time young one, you knocked yourself out pretty hard in your fight."

Locus rubbed his head, "Yeah my fight….Um who are you people, if you don't mind me asking."

"I am Lord Saladin, sentry of the Iron Banner. The one with the horns is Lord Shaxx, handler of the Crucible. And…."

"And I can introduce myself Saladin. I am Osiris, the Warlock Vanguard mentor. I'm here because your own mentor, Andal Brask, is busy gambling his money with his protege."

As soon as Osiris finished the door opened and a hooded man walked in. "Come on Osiris, you don't give me enough credit. Cayde and I were only making sure we could properly introduce our new guardian to his new life."

While looking at Aura as she appeared Locus spoke, "My callsign was Locus according to records. But my name was Kaleb Washington."

"Well that makes you an interesting case," Osiris spoke suddenly, "You're one of only a handful of guardians to know who they were to an extent. Another being Ana Bray, again a Hunter." he then gives Andal a dirty look.

"What does that look mean Osiris," Andal asked sounding sarcastically offended, "You do think my Hunters are a problem for this?"

Shaking his head, Osiris sighed and waved off the question. "Now's not the time for that discussion Andal. You should really give him the introduction before Zavala or the Speaker bore him to another death with theirs."

"Right, come on kid. Time that you see the last safe city on Earth."

And then Andal lead Locus, now known as Kaleb to those few to get close to him like Andal and Osiris, to see the City and to begin his work as a guardian, and eventually a Vanguard Scout under Cayde's teachings. But was not prepared for what he found after the Red War had ended.


	3. Remembering

Procrastination can be a big pain.

* * *

Chapter 3: Remembering

 **Guardian's Journal Entry 1**

 _*Transcribed From Audio Recording*_

After recent events Aura recommended me to write this in case the Red Legion finds me before Humanity does. Right now, it's been two years since we killed Oryx and four days since the Cabal attacked the City and I've fallen back to one of my old hideouts in the mountains just out of the City. Well, one of Cayde's that he got from Andal. But let's run down run down what the past few years have been like for this lightless scout.

First year back, I quickly became one of Andal's favorite scouts. And then everything went downhill from there. Not even two years into my time and the Fallen had hit us hard at Twilight Gap. That was the first time I saw Ana Bray in action, and the pools of light that she left behind gave way to the brightest uses of light any of us there had seen. While the battle was a victory for us, we did lose too many guardians to the Fallen, Crux Lomar did a good thing with creating the Gjallarhorn. Besides those we lost there, the Consensus also exiled Osiris for being obsessive about the Vex. Too bad about it though, he seemed confident in what he said, and he didn't annoy me like most warlocks. But that was the beginning of more craziness. After Twilight, Saint-14 lead another crusade against the Fallen, which I was part of since he was a good friend, before he disappeared. Then there was the whole faction coup stared by the Concordat, and the FWC replaced them. Then, the beginning of the end started.

The Hive invaded Earth at the Burning Lake, and we weren't prepared for how strong they were. The Consensus wanted to launch a full counter attack on the moon, somewhere we hadn't gone for a long time. And Shaxx being the one most concerned about our strength in battles, barged in demanding that we send scouts to find out what we'd be fighting. But the stubborn asshats decided that we could take the moon without reports, hell I was willing to go out there alone and recon at least a landing zone…. Then it happened. Thousands of guardians were sent to take our moon, no one made it back. Crota killed them all using that damned sword of his. I got lucky when it happened, I was in Japan tracking down leads. But people I knew where sent, well volunteered to go. They were my fireteam and were used to me being on assignment for the Vanguard…. They were another hunter, an Exo who arrived the same day I did, which meant him and I were instantly rivals and friends. And a warlock I met in the Crucible. She hated my cockiness when my golden gun wiped the rest of her team, nova bombs hurt when they hit directly. She felt pretty bad about my sore everything that I didn't have to buy my ramen for a month….. Neither of them deserved to be part of the Charlie Foxtrot. And they were the last fireteam I had. And the start of losing more friends.

Before more depressing stories, one good thing did happen. We hunted down every Ahamkara we could find since we deemed them too dangerous with how they grant wishes.

But the Fallen never stop being pains in the ass. This time it was Taniks the Scarred, the reason Andal was my mentor, and why Cayde became my second. He reappeared after being thought to be dead, big surprise, so Andal and Cayde went to go bag him again. Three guns went into that fight, and one came out then with one coming out later. I don't think me or Cayde ever really got over losing Andal to that four-armed freak. But following tradition, Cayde took the post of our vanguard, and Andal's cloak to show respect to him. Then there's the tragedy of Dredgen Yor, and his murdering of many guardians. But we had to move on, especially with what news was about to come in.

So, my perspective reader, you probably know about "The Guardian", we all do. Came up in Russia, killed the Black Garden's heart. Stopped the Vex from screwing up time, that was a fun mission to be on. Avenged our lost guardians on the moon. Got us more access into the Reef by taking out Skolas, and Taniks. But then pissed off daddy Oryx came into the system killing most if the Awoken and messing up Saturn's rings. And because of course they did, the Guardian killed him, twice technically through Hive magic. So, in the few years they were around, they killed a Vex god, two Hive gods, and some of the worst Fallen to come around. But then Saladin's worst nightmare came around. SIVA surprised all of us when it infected the Cosmodrome. So, in response Cayde had Shiro and I running all the scouts we could afford through the Plaguelands. Luckily the replication chamber was stopped, and the Splicers were killed off.

After that last crisis everything started to go well. Maybe we got a little complacent in all our victories. Then well, you know what happened. And that puts us back at my cold hole in the mountain. * _Aura speaks from across the hideout_ * Looks like I got to go now. Wish me luck. Captain Kaleb "Locus" Washington signing off.

 *** _End Transcription*_**

Locus then walked over to where Aura was hovering. "What's up little light? I didn't get to make a clever name for my log."

"We have movement. Something small is coming towards us. Like it knows this hideout is here."

"Well then hide and I'll handle it when it comes into view." Aura nods and fades away while Locus hunkers behind a storage bin, hand cannon drawn. A few minutes go by and slowly he hears labored breathing from what was coming to his cave, and pops up weapon up, freezing. "Ok, did not expect this."

Standing at the mouth of the cave leaning on the wall was a warlock cradling her ghost against her robes. And she stood there for a minute before smiling weekly and speaking.

"Guess I can finally lay down and get some nice sleep knowing a hunter is watching." She chuckled a bit before collapsing to the ground asleep. And Locus quickly pulled her in near to his fire.


End file.
